Macabre sense of humor

Got this off MSN (part of a good piece on Chechens attacking from sewers and
using tunnels and sewage piping to flank Russian formations in the city):

GENERAL'S FATE DISPUTED The Russian general reportedly missing was deputy
commander of the army that has spearheaded the offensive against Chechnya.
Russian officials said he was killed or captured this week while visiting a
part of the Chechen capital of Grozny that the Russians claim is under their
control.

Malofeyev, a commander of the North Caucasus army, is the highest ranking
officer to become a casualty in Russia's five-month-old war to pacify
the breakaway region. The Chechens announced they had captured him, while
Russian officials said he has been missing for two or three days and was
either wounded or killed during fierce fighting in Grozny.

Russian television reports said Malofeyev was visiting soldiers and urging
them to stand up and fight instead of lying down to hide from snipers. The
reports, which could not be confirmed, said the general was shot in the back
and head while delivering the lecture.

** Why can I just picture this... soldiers who know the battlefront and the
sniper dangers hunkered down to not give the snipers a target. The general, a
REMF, wandering about lecturing them and exhorting them to stand up and fight
(like fighting snipers was something easily accomplished and like
standing up was the solution to engaging snipers). P-crack! Scratch one
general. The *joys* of urban warfare against a motivated, entrenched enemy
defending their homeland.... SG2 Mission Motivation High for sure. And I
suspect the Russian troops, being of the same variety as lost this conflict
last time, are probably Low Motivation.

> At 03:08 PM 1/21/00 -0500, you wrote:

Just like the Russians did in Stalingrad :-) History repeats itself
again.

This sounds an awful lot like the Union general at Gettysburg whose last

words were "Don't be ridiculous, they could hit an elephant at this
dist..."